Worsening Groin Disaster, Rated XM for Mature Medical

I went to the doctor this morning, explained the situation about my time in the Wilderness, and the gradual appearance of a smallish lesion sometime after my return from the woods, and how this has steadily blossomed--in spite of, or perhaps because of--the various self-treatments I had tried (OTC anti-fungal foot creme; powerful cortisone creme for thumb fungus; scalding hot water dousing).

He had me drop my pants and Hog Sheathe to reveal the horrorshow lurking below. It now looks like an open stab wound, or some kind of attempt by my body to transform my gender against my will, or maybe like the first axe strike that will eventually lead to my left leg cracking and the need to cry "Timber" when the thing crashes on the ground, possibly making a sound, possibly not, depending on whether there is anyone around to hear it, and that person's philosophical leanings.

I'm getting off the track.

He looked at the lesion as I looked at his eyes. A doctor becomes steeled over the decades by human disgustingness, but this was of such a revolting caliber that I dare say even Edgar Allen Poe would have been moved to vomit at the sight of it.

First warning: you, too, will soon have the opportunity to see this in a coldly sterile medical photograph taken by me on my Logitech QuickCapture internet camera.

Do not look if you are underweight, for to look at this lesion as it has come to be over the course of the past few days is to virtually guarantee that you will lose both your appetite and your lunch.

Indeed, it's only a matter of time before the Jim Thornton Groin Catastrophe Pictorial Diet Plan catches on with startlets all throughout Southern California and its surrounding valleys and nooks.

So the doctor said, "It doesn't actually look like a fungus--more like an infection. Is it possible you might have been bitten by a tick?"

He proceeded to list a number of suspects he wanted to run titers for, including Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and/or other germs of the rickettsia group.

As Wikipedia sums up:

Rickettsia is a [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genus"]genus[/ame] of [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motility"]motile[/ame], Gram-negative, [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endospore"]non-sporeforming[/ame], highly [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleomorphic"]pleomorphic[/ame] [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterium"]bacteria[/ame] that can present as [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocci"]cocci[/ame] (0.1 μm in diameter), rods (1–4 μm long) or thread-like (10 μm long). [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obligate_intracellular_parasites"]Obligate intracellular parasites[/ame], the Rickettsia survival depends on entry, growth, and replication within the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytoplasm"]cytoplasm[/ame] of [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eukaryote"]eukaryotic[/ame] host cells (typically endothelial cells).[1] Because of this, Rickettsia cannot live in artificial nutrient environments and are grown either in [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_tissue"]tissue[/ame] or [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryo"]embryo[/ame] cultures (typically, chicken embryos are used). In the past they were regarded as microorganisms positioned somewhere between viruses and true [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterium"]bacteria[/ame]. The majority of Rickettsia bacteria are susceptible to [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic"]antibiotics[/ame] of the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetracycline"]tetracycline[/ame] group.Rickettsia species are carried as [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasite"]parasites[/ame] by many [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick"]ticks[/ame], [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flea"]fleas[/ame], and [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lice"]lice[/ame], and cause [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease"]diseases[/ame] such as [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhus"]typhus[/ame], [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickettsialpox"]rickettsialpox[/ame], [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boutonneuse_fever"]Boutonneuse fever[/ame], African Tick Bite Fever, [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_spotted_fever"]Rocky Mountain spotted fever[/ame], Australian Tick Typhus, Flinders Island Spotted Fever and Queensland Tick Typhus[2] in human beings. They have also been associated with a range of plant diseases. Like [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus"]viruses[/ame], they only grow inside living cells. The name rickettsia is often used for any member of the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickettsiales"]Rickettsiales[/ame]. They are thought to be the closest living relatives to bacteria that were the origin of the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondria"]mitochondria[/ame] organelle that exists inside most [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eukaryotic"]eukaryotic[/ame] cells.
The method of growing Rickettsia in chicken embryos was invented by [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_William_Goodpasture"]Ernest William Goodpasture[/ame] and his colleagues at [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanderbilt_University"]Vanderbilt University[/ame] in the early 1930s.

How typically inane of me to have worried about misadventure with wolverines, pizzlies, and porcupines when the real threat were non sporeforming highly pleomorphic obligate intracellular parasites!

Warning number 2: do not look at my pictures if you are squeamish, prudish, or plagued a disturbing triumvirate of traits that include bed wetting, fire setting, and animal getting. These pictures will either greatly disturb you or enable you to begin acting on certain fantasies that are best left unacted upon. You have been warned twice!

My friend and swimming coach, Bill White, who in a recent comment about yesterday's vlog, Groin Disaster! ( http://forums.usms.org/blog.php?b=5894--less than 50 hits and no 5 star ratings yet--honestly, would it kill you to click on this link and revisit!) banned me from swimming practice till the Pierian Spring in my groin stops producing liquid, anyhow, Bill and I got to talking today after my new diagnosis, and I told him that I would love to be able to show my regular viewers what exactly it is that I am suffering so egregiously from, but due to its location and the family values of the USMS community at large, which doesn't take kindly to rickettsia in these parts, anyhow, I lamented that I couldn't do so without inviting complaints and the likelihood Jim Matysek would be recruited into taking such a graphic vlog down.

Bill came up with a great idea: simply cover over what EricOrca referred to as my "naughty bits" with a picture that provides a schematic sense of where the lesion is in relationship to a medically accurate if idealized anatomical drawing.

Which will make much more sense once you see it.

However, I must now issue Warning Number 3:

Do not read any further, nor examine in any way, least of all great detail (which can be done by holding down the ctrl key and tapping the + sign on PC's, not sure exactly how to zoom in on lesions on a Mac.)

Do not do this, please!

Furthermore, if you are a woman who has secretly been harboring unrequited romantic leanings towards me, you have reached something of a fork in the road here.

If you want to rid yourself forever of these tortured unrequited feelings, then looking will absolutely do the trick.

If, however, you find that fantasizing about me gives your life a sense of meaning it had never known before, and you are holding out hope for the 1 in 10,000 chance, nay, 1 in 1,000,000 chance the lesion will ultimately (as the doctor predicts) heal, then do NOT look at these pictures, for the night bell once rung can not be unrung, and Jim's Groin Disaster, Rated XM for Mature Medical, shall surely haunt you all the days of your life, and more!

Final warning.

Do not look.

The armamentarium now includes antibiotic ointment and antibiotic pills and bandaids to keep the poultice in place. The cortisone and antifungal cremes are no longer being used. The Wolverine Spirit God continues to be an important part of the incantations I speak when delirious.

Male patient, 57, wearing an item of garmentry sometimes referred to as "panties" by his women friends but which he himself calls the Hog Sheathe

Comments

It looks to me like a very lonely hemorrhoid that has wandered off the reservation. Which may be because your trip to Idaho inspired said hemorrhoid to read up on Lewis and Clarke and then light off for the territories as huck Finn might put it!

Being your age I would have thought you would have been circumsized as was the way it went in the 50s. Or you also have a tick bite to your gland...if you shave will you shave both sides, so as to look good?

How many of you actually hit CTRL + several times in a row so as to get a better look at the lesion?

Probably no need.

I took my first antibiotic, annointed the area with antibiotic goo, and then fell asleep on the couch. I just woke up, and though I am afraid to lift the bandaid to see the changes, I am almost certain the cavity has trebled in size.

What starts in a joke--bravado to stave off the Reaper--may still end in the grandest funeral celebration American adult swimming has ever seen.